Telecaster Plus Build - first attempt

[Medeltids]

I have a scraper, but I haven’t sharpened or burred it, I’m slightly worried about messing it up. I used utility knife blades today. It worked pretty well but my thumbs and index fingers are slightly blistered. Next time I’ll wear my leather gloves I suppose.

Thanks Freeman, I’ll look up how to properly setup and use a scraper before my next binding.

I use utility blades all the time. You can roll over a little burr and they cut really nice. I use a piece of blue painter’s tape attached to the not-blade side to make holding it (and control of cut) much easier.
Tip: Mark the side that has the burr. If you’re like me, the old eyes don’t see that tiny rolled over edge very well.

 

[badscrew_projects]

Learning by failing and doing it again is the best kind of learning.

 

[devrock]

You have a lot of gaps in the binding, but if you mix up the plastic shavings with acetone, you can make a paste and fill those gaps right up.

 

[NewTimerJH]

Looking good so far!
Those gaps in the binding are not a fatality, you can clip little bits of binding into a small container and add a few drops of acetone on top of them, let that to dissolve for a few hours, and you'll get your goop. Pack it into the gaps with a toothpick or a short section of a dead G string, let it rest for 24 hours (it takes a while for the acetone to gas off), and scrape it all flush again. No one will know those gaps were there.

You have a lot of gaps in the binding, but if you mix up the plastic shavings with acetone, you can make a paste and fill those gaps right up.

Unfortunately these gaps are now filled with super glue and scraped flat. I’m hoping I can carefully cover them with paint! Maybe a terrible idea! I guess we’ll find out

 

[NewTimerJH]

Got a little bit of work done.

Neck pocket routed and started on the neck yesterday.

My neck pocket’s a little wonky from a bandsaw error back when cutting out the rough shape. There will be a bit of overhang of the neck, worst case I carve it all flush but I’ll probably leave it once it’s assembled, we’ll see.

Started on the neck, I had a few boo boos on the route for the truss rod, but everything’s nice and flush so oh well. Live and learn. Next I’ll be checking out the build a neck threads to figure out the exact steps in what order I want to take. I’m more terrified of drilling the tuner holes than even carving the neck.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Some have found this series helpful. There are two more after this:

Let's make a neck!

Since many of my threads are essentially useless now due to photo blackmail, I thought I'd start a new one while I make a neck that I need for a build. This will be a maple two piece bolt on neck with a hotrod truss rod. I went to order a hotrod and saw they were back ordered, so I...

www.tdpri.com

 

[ETMusic777]

Here is the official wiring diagram from Fender for the 90s Tele Plus and Tele Deluxe Plus and a good internal photo of it. Here is also a photo of my 91 Tele Deluxe Plus with factory tremelo which I bought new in 1993. Great guitars. The Lace Sensors sound much different in the Telecaster Plus' than they do in the Strat Plus'. I have both. Congratulations and good luck on your build.

PS: Here is a link to Xhefri's Strat and Tele Plus website. He is very much an expert on these guitars and there is lots of great info here: http://xhefriguitars.com/page20.html

 

[NewTimerJH]

Some have found this series helpful. There are two more after this:

Let's make a neck!

Since many of my threads are essentially useless now due to photo blackmail, I thought I'd start a new one while I make a neck that I need for a build. This will be a maple two piece bolt on neck with a hotrod truss rod. I went to order a hotrod and saw they were back ordered, so I...

www.tdpri.com

And so have I! I don’t have access to anything like a jointer, just a #4 hand plane and router. Let’s make a neck #3 has been helpful considering I’m using a pre made fretboard. Thanks for these threads!

I suppose I’ll need to build some sort of router sled setup, I just don’t have much space.

Here is the official wiring diagram from Fender for the 90s Tele Plus and Tele Deluxe Plus and a good internal photo of it. Here is also a photo of my 91 Tele Deluxe Plus with factory tremelo which I bought new in 1993. Great guitars. The Lace Sensors sound much different in the Telecaster Plus' than they do in the Strat Plus'. I have both. Congratulations and good luck on your build.

PS: Here is a link to Xhefri's Strat and Tele Plus website. He is very much an expert on these guitars and there is lots of great info here: http://xhefriguitars.com/page20.html

This is really generous, thank you very much! I’ll more or less use my own wiring scheme, it will be simpler as I don’t intend to have any coil splitting, but in the future I may update that.

 

[MelodicBend]

Hi, JH.

Very brave of you to take on a very challenging model and with binding all from scratch. No backup plank or premade neck? No problem it seems!

I remember back in the 90's when I decided I didn't want the used Plus offered to me at over 50% off in mint condition because it cost like a whole $100 more than the other guitar I was looking at and if was so great, they would have called it a Supreme or Master of the Universe rather than merely just "plus". I love teenage me but there's some things I don't miss about myself at all.

Everything looks great so far. I for one appreciate the photos and progress updates.

Definitely let us know when you start on the speed holes and the rear built in speaker.

 

[badscrew_projects]

I love teenage me but there's some things I don't miss about myself at all.

Hey some of us were dumber than that. Way more

 

[NewTimerJH]

Hi, JH.

Very brave of you to take on a very challenging model and with binding all from scratch. No backup plank or premade neck? No problem it seems!

I remember back in the 90's when I decided I didn't want the used Plus offered to me at over 50% off in mint condition because it cost like a whole $100 more than the other guitar I was looking at and if was so great, they would have called it a Supreme or Master of the Universe rather than merely just "plus". I love teenage me but there's some things I don't miss about myself at all.

Everything looks great so far. I for one appreciate the photos and progress updates.

Definitely let us know when you start on the speed holes and the rear built in speaker.

Is it bravery or stupidity I always wonder? There’s always the one that got away!! Thanks very much for the kind words as always.

 

[NewTimerJH]

A bit of progress today. Started vacation today so I’m hoping to wrap up everything but the finish in the next week. Unlikely but it’s a good goal.

Started on the inlay dots. I have maple dots from Stewmac.

I drew a center line, then crossed out the centers of hopeful dot locations. It was a little imprecise with the thickness of my white pencil. It’s some sort of wax pencil, I’ll need to find something better at some point.

Yes, I messed up right off the bat with attempted dots on the 4th and 6th frets. Even with the reference neck to help

Started the drilling. A few practice runs and went for it.

Had to eyeball a few center marks and actually somehow improved some of them.

While I had my drill press out (it sits on a shelf and I haul it down to my work bench when I need it) I wanted to get the tuner holes drilled.

I cut out the headstock of my blueprint, cut holes to match up center lines, then used an awl to punch the center marks. I saw someone else in a build thread use this method, loved it.

Drilled pilot holes then full 10mm for my gotohs.

They’re particularly wonky, but I think it will be passable. I think my cheap drill press has more drift than I would like.

Afterward I glued in my dots with a drop of CA, then sanded everything flush. Think I’m still on track. They’re a little uneven but for first try I’m quite pleased

Tomorrow I’ll attempt to figure out my next steps. Thinking I’ll trim the headstock to thickness while it’s squared, then start getting my neck shaped up, then glue the fretboard and use my router to shape it to the neck.

Thanks everyone!

 

[NewTimerJH]

It turns out my bandsaw, although having just enough clearance, doesn’t have the power to reasonably cut the top of the headstock off. Disappointing, but I’ll continue to use it for what I got it for, cutting out outlines, which it handles just fine.

So all of this will be on hold until I build myself a small router sled setup.

I’ve put off building one but I don’t see an easier or less expensive option.

The safety planer from stewmac would work but I prefer all of my fingers and would still cost more than a router sled. Off to the hardware store.

 

[NewTimerJH]

Well, I jumbled together a sled. Tomorrow I’ll use it to thickness the headstock and finish the outline work on the neck

 

[NewTimerJH]

Router sled worked even better than I expected. What a cool piece of kit!

Routers are incredibly versatile tools. I can use them to copy or thickness, but they’re also my only way of cutting a true straight line when following a straight edge. My bandsaw’s table doesn’t have true square edges so I can’t use them as a reference point for squaring up a fence with the blade. I also don’t have a table saw, so my router’s my straight edge tool. Anyways!

Got my neck shaped up and the headstock to thickness. I need to finish shaping the fretboard and then glue up, sand in the nut to headstock transition, then start carving! I’m excited to start the carve.

I learned a lot about how not to build a neck, and I know now how I will change the order in which I do things for my next neck for a simpler process.

 

[NewTimerJH]

Well, I botched the glue up sadly.

Used 5 wire nails cut down imbedded in the FB and neck, 2 radiused clamping cauls, 6 clamps. Somehow still had slippage.

It rotated up by the nut, the heel side is pretty darn close to perfect.

Apart from steaming the fb off and sanding everything back and trying again there’s not much that can be done.

I will probably sand down the sides with a large straight beam and then go ahead and fret it and try to make it playable just for fun, but it will never be right.

I have a nice piece of walnut that’s the right size, it will probably be the next neck!

If anyone has any ideas on salvageability I’m all ears but for now I’ll start planning out the new neck.

 

[Ua The Destroyer]

Nice job. Bummer about the neck. I took 5 throwaways before I finished my first playable neck recently. The 2nd after that finished one went very smooth. To locate the fretboard so it didn’t slide and stayed on center I drilled 7/64 holes in the nut off center and one in the 12 the fret dot marker center and matching holes in the neck itself. Then when I glued up I slipped the back end of a 7/64 bit into each hole to line up and clamped it down. Worked great to hold it in place. Once it was dry I pulled the drill bits routed the board to match the neck and installed the fret markers. Saw this trick somewhere online once.

 

[Freeman Keller]

I dowel my fretbards to my necks because I fret them before gluing them together and I don't have the slots to put brads in.

I also have removed a fretboard from a neck, its not all that unreasonable if you truly like the neck. In my case I was building the neck for another guy and we had a disagreement about what he wanted for inlays, it was easiest for me to just put a new board on it. I used a silicon heating blanked and just worked a couple of pallet knifes in the seam until it popped off. The glue was Titebonds which I knew would separate

 

[badscrew_projects]

probably not the slippage?

(the two red boxes are the same width)

 

[NewTimerJH]

probably not the slippage?

(the two red boxes are the same width)

View attachment 1098374

I believe that’s just my poor drilling alignment, not related to the glue up. Sorry, not sure what you’re getting at!

Thanks Ua and FK, I’ll try to work in one of these suggestions on my next neck!

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.